The Impact of ESG on Corporate Carbon Performance

Global carbon neutrality roadmaps are being steadily delivered, alongside the enforcement of the EU CBAM carbon tariff policy, which makes the correlation between listed firms’ ESG levels and carbon efficiency a worthy research subject. This work collects 15,128 valid observation records of domestic A-share corporations from 2019 through 2023. A two-way fixed-effects panel model is applied to conduct empirical tests on the heterogeneous influence of comprehensive ESG as well as E, S, G separate indicators on unit-output carbon emissions. Additionally, two industry-leading renewable energy firms, CATL and SANY Heavy Energy, are picked to implement a comparative dual-case study The research finds that: the comprehensive ESG performance significantly reduces the corporate carbon emission intensity, among which the emission reduction effect of the governance (G) dimension is the strongest, followed by the environmental (E) dimension, and the social (S) dimension is no longer significant after controlling other dimensions; the conclusion is basically the same after using the individual fixed-effect model for the robustness test, and the significance of the environmental dimension is even enhanced. The case analysis shows that CATL forms a differential advantage in the E dimension relying on supply chain carbon management and battery recycling system, while SANY Heavy Energy performs outstandingly in the G dimension through a complete governance structure and full-life cycle carbon accounting. This paper expands the mechanism research on the impact of ESG sub-dimensions on carbon performance, and provides practical reference for new energy enterprises to cope with overseas carbon barriers.